MARXISM, SOCIALISM, CHINA, AND THE WORLD

On March 12, 2007, the Manuscript Collective of S&S met with a group of researchers and workers from the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau attached to
the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).1 They were in New
York to present papers on the current stage in Chinese economic and social development at the Left Forum, which had been held over the weekend prior to our meeting
with them. While the usual constraints of time and language were at work, the conversation was cordial, and led to promises, on both sides, of extending contacts and
developing forms of cooperation. This includes what is eventually to become a Special Issue on China  perhaps the title of this Editorial can serve as a working title
for that issue, although further evolution is still possible  to include contributions
from Chinese authorities secured through the Translation Bureau, as well as other
scholars from China and a range of non-Chinese participants, with varying degrees
of specialized knowledge and interests. Please think of this Editorial as a Call for
Papers, and proposals. We would love to hear from readers and potential contributors.

The importance of the topic is undeniable. Our Special Issue of July 2005
(Vol. 69, No. 3), on "The Deep Structure of the Present Moment" (guest edited by
Renate Bridenthal) contained a study by Minqi Li on "The Rise of China and the
Demise of the Capitalist World Economy." ("Demise," of course, raises a flag that
some readers may wish to question.) Li's paper sketched out several alternative
scenarios for the 21st century, in all of which China plays an increasingly important
role. In today's fluid and contradictory world, the search for clarification on China's
history, reality and prospects is crucial for left thought and action, and we hope to
make Science & Society a forum for that search.

As always, we seek a full range of positions, and do not expect any kind of
consensus or elimination of inconsistency among the contributions. We certainly
hope to elicit input from the CCP CC Translation Bureau, as well as from other Chinese scholars and thinkers, that helps us advance in understanding, on the internationalist principle that those who can write from direct experience  from within,
so to speak  must play a major role in the dialog. Perhaps we can say that, whatever other differences may exist among S&S' editors, authors and readers, we share
a sense that sound thinking on China should avoid two different types of distortion.

The first of these is a tendency, all too common among leftists in advanced
capitalist countries, to apply romantic and utopian standards leading to hyper-criticism and failure to evaluate countries such as China as they must be evaluated:
within a deep historical context. I have previously quoted Fidel Castro, from a now
untraceable speech in the 1970s referring to the attitude of certain European
intellectuals toward the USSR: "A country is first of all a reality, and the product of
many other realities." The same applies to China. Criticism that uses idealized
perfection as a launch pad from which to spew hostility and rejection is, from this
point of view, at the very least unhelpful.

Second, we understand and appreciate the desire, on the part of some sections
of the left, to form alliances with those who speak in the name of socialism and hold
state power somewhere in the world. Still, vast experience (detailing should not be
necessary here) teaches us that official pronouncements cannot be taken at face
value; that even  perhaps especially  the politics of those who profess to be
working within the Marxist tradition and to be building superior, post-capitalist
societies, from positions of political authority, must be subjected to intense critical
scrutiny.

Within this framework, we have prepared the following groups of questions,
as a guide to our interest in serious Marxist study of China, both internally and in its
relations with the rest of the world. These questions are not directed towards any
one group of participants in this project; they are for all of us, and should be used as
each participant sees fit. Some of the questions, of course, have a "voice" that makes
them most appropriately directed toward our Chinese contributors, especially those
who are in a position to speak for the makers of policy. The list is undoubtedly
incomplete, and should by no means by taken as the outer limit of topics that might
be explored in a forthcoming Special Issue. Our goal is only to give the process of
study and interchange a good sendoff.

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QUESTIONS ON CHINA'S SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT2

1. Chinese civilization is 4,000 years old, and China produced major technological
and cultural advances, with highly sophisticated political institutions, at times when
peoples in other parts of the world  notably, Europe  remained quite backward
by comparison. Nevertheless, the dynamic breakthrough to capitalism occurred in
the West, not the East, and capitalist imperialism was a powerful external force
acting on Chinese social development from the 19th century forward, rather than the
reverse.

How should Marxist scholars account for the social formations that
dominated Chinese society until the 2oth century? How has the Chinese Revolution
since 1949 addressed the issue of precapitalist social relations and consciousness,
and the need to accomplish tasks of transition from precapitalist forms
simultaneously with overcoming low levels of development in general and building
socialist institutions?

In particular, many Western scholars  including the remarkable Joseph
Needham, whose six-volume Science and Civilization in China brought basic
knowledge of and a respectful attitude toward China to a whole generation of
readers  have applied a communal-hydraulic conception (we recall Marx's brief
reference to an "Asiatic" epoch) to understanding the communal village in China, its
resilience and resistance to disintegration, even when huge surpluses were extracted
from it to support the elite strata that were the source of so much scientific and
cultural development. What forms and powers of the village commune, with the
associated familial ties, still exist in China today? How do the legacies of communal
relations appear in Chinese society at present? What are their positive and negative
impacts on social progress?

2. In the Marxist tradition, socialism  more generally, communism, with
"socialism" denoting that mode of production's lower stage  has included, as an
essential element, the replacement of spontaneous market (commodity) relations
with conscious planning and foresight. Marx, for example, speaks of "a community
of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common,
in which the labor-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the
combined labor-power of the community" (Capital, Vol. I, ch. 1, section 4). In the
20th century, almost every country involved in socialist construction, starting from
relatively low levels of social and technical development, has theorized a need for
markets, outside of a core public and planned sector occupying the "commanding
heights" of the economy, and even, in some senses, within that core. These market
relations would last a long time; they would, however, eventually wither away, as
conditions make that possible, with their remaining positive contributions to
socialist development being subsumed within the system of comprehensive
planning and democratic participation.

At present, however, the Chinese leadership has proclaimed the concept of
"socialist market economy," not as a protracted transitional form owing to a need for
"catching-up" development, but as the essence or full realization of socialism as
such. Any evolution beyond the market economy is postponed until some distant
future, about which nothing of substance can be known at present.

How can this conception be reconciled  or should it be reconciled  with
the vision of socialism and communism found in both classical Marxism and in
socialist practice in the 20th century? And: if the market, including the market in
labor power, is to be a central aspect of economic life, and planning is to be either
abolished or reduced to a secondary role, what meaning remains attached to the
term "socialist" in "socialist market economy"?

3. The central experience of socialist construction in the 20th century was that of the
Soviet Union. That experience produced a rich legacy of institutions and theory 
the political economy of socialism, a subject within Marxism that could not have
been elaborated before 1917, except in very broad and speculative outline. Soviet
academics and political theorists developed conceptions of stages through which
socialist planning institutions pass, as they mature. These involve systems of
planning, methods for progressive devolution of planning to decentral levels, forms
of management within enterprises, methods of price formation, theory for
determining wage differentials and managing the evolution of those differentials,
normative methods for evaluating the work of enterprises and progressively
overcoming distortions; and much more.

What use might be made of this legacy in China today? Is it true that China
before Deng Xiaoping followed a Soviet "model"? To what extent are the legacies of
Soviet socialist thought a reflection of specific historical conditions that are not
reproduced elsewhere? Conversely, to what extent do they have more general
significance? In particular, what contribution might they make to Chinese socialist
development, after the necessary adjustment to China's specific historical and
cultural conditions?

What contributions or lessons can be derived from other experiences of
socialist construction in the world, from Eastern Europe and Cuba to Vietnam and
the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea?

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1. The delegation was headed by Zhuang Junju, of the School of
International Relations, Peking University. Other members of the
delegation were Cai Shugui, Deng Chenming, Huang Xiaowu, Jinag
Yang, and Yang Jinhai.

2. These questions were formulated by a team consisting of the Editor;
Editorial Board member Barbara Foley, who has both a long-standing
interest and scholarly connections in China; and Contributing Editor
Bernard H. Moss.